3. RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommendations of the Task Force that follow in this Report all rest on the fundamental proposition that gay and lesbian lawyers are entitled to employment opportunities, a work environment, and the opportunity for professional advancement in which their sexual orientation plays no role. In other words, heterosexual lawyers, and gay and lesbian lawyers, should be accorded equal treatment in the workplace. This fundamental proposition has several interwoven bases.

One is that employment discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation is, in the District of Columbia, the federal workforce and much of the D.C. metropolitan area, prohibited by law. See discussion at 1, above.31

Another basis is a practical one, which is that sexual orientation has no relationship to a lawyer's ability. Since some portion of the population of lawyers and law students is gay or lesbian, legal employers would be acting contrary to their own interests and limiting their own opportunities if they declined to hire, retain or promote lawyers on the basis of sexual orientation. Moreover, as increasing numbers of self-identified gay men and lesbians become decision-makers in the corporate32 and public33 sectors, legal employers who fail to create an hospitable workplace for gay and lesbian lawyers are risking business opportunities in a highly competitive legal environment.

Finally, it is the Task Force's sense that, requirements of law and considerations of self-interest aside, our shared ideal of civic decency demands that we treat our fellow citizens with the same respect we ask of them, without regard to characteristics (such as race, creed, gender and many others) that have no bearing on their competence or trustworthiness. We find some significance, in this regard, in the fact that public opinion polls show that, whatever their view of homosexuality as such, a substantial majority of the American public disapprove of discrimination in employment on the ground of sexual orientation. See, e.g., Hanna Rosin & Richard Morin, As Tolerance Grows, Acceptance Remains Elusive, WASH. POST, Dec. 26, 1998 at A1, A26 (reporting the finding of a poll by the Washington Post, Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University, that 87 per cent of respondents said that gays and lesbians should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities).34

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31. Appendix E contains a list of citations to local laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
32. For example, a substantial number of openly gay men and lesbians have assumed leadership positions in Fortune 500 corporations. See James D. Woods with Jay H. Lucas, The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America (1993); Thomas A. Stewart, Gay in Corporate America, FORTUNE, December 16, 1991, at 42-46.
33. For example, the 106th Congress includes three openly gay and lesbian members. Two openly gay men were recently elected to serve on the District of Columbia City Council. More than one hundred and thirty openly gay men and lesbians have been appointed to positions at the highest levels of the federal government, including Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Assistant to the President for Administration, and Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget in the Department of the Interior. See "Gay and Lesbian Outreach Desk: Accomplishments, The Official Site of the Democratic National Committee," November 1998 http://www.democrats.org/outreach/glaccomp.html.
34. Of course, fundamental human rights cannot properly be subjected to majority whims. We refer here to polls merely to demonstrate that most Americans recognize that a person's sexual orientation is irrelevant when it comes to his or her job skills and should not impair a person's employment opportunities or permit unequal treatment in the workplace.